What you need to know about who is Buying Homes

There’s always a lot of news around housing numbers. Whether home sales are up or down, hot or cold, when they’re released, housing numbers grab headlines. According to the most recent numbers from the National Association of Realtors, nearly 5 million homes will be sold in 2014. That’s a lot of homes!

One thing that gets lost in the mix is who these home buyers are. Are they young? Retirees? Buying their first home, moving up or downsizing? That’s where the Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers from the National Association of Realtors comes in. The report is released each year and includes an analysis of the characteristics of home buyers from the year previous.

So who exactly has been buying homes? According to the most recent Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, the typical home buyer was 42 years old with a household income of $83,300.

First-time home buyers made up 38 percent of the market. The average first-time buyer was 31 years old and had an income of $64,400. Geographically, most of the first-time buyers were in Northeast, where 44 percent of home buyers bought their first home. The South and West had the smallest share of first-time buyers at 35 percent each. These numbers were a little less than previous years, when first-time home buyers comprised 40 percent of the total buyer pool.

Overall, the largest share of home buyers (30 percent) was between the ages of 25 and 34. Two out of every three (66 percent) home buyers were married, but single home buyers made up a quarter (25 percent) of the market. Single females made up the majority of the single home buyer market, accounting for 16 percent of all home buyers, while single males made up nine percent of the overall market.

And why were all these people in the market? The primary reason was a desire to own a home. Repeat buyers of course had a different motivation. Most repeat buyers bought a home because they wanted more space or needed to relocate for a job.

So where do you fit in if you’re considering buying a home? Are you one of the single females looking to own your own place, or are you married and looking for a move-up home to start a family? Whichever you are, there’s no better time to buy a home than now.